In 1648 Louis the Fourteenth, crowned with a wreath of roses
and carrying a bunch of roses in his hand, kindled the fire, danced
at it and partook of the banquet afterwards in the town hall. But
this was the last occasion when a monarch presided at the midsummer
bonfire in Paris. At Metz midsummer fires were lighted with great
pomp on the esplanade, and a dozen cats, enclosed in wicker cages,
were burned alive in them, to the amusement of the people. Similarly
at Gap, in the department of the High Alps, cats used to be roasted
over the midsummer bonfire. In Russia a white cock was sometimes
burned in the midsummer bonfire; in Meissen or Thuringia a horse's
head used to be thrown into it. Sometimes animals are burned in the
spring bonfires. In the Vosges cats were burned on Shrove Tuesday;
in Alsace they were thrown into the Easter bonfire. In the
department of the Ardennes cats were flung into the bonfires kindled
on the first Sunday in Lent; sometimes, by a refinement of cruelty,
they were hung over the fire from the end of a pole and roasted
alive.
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